{"id":15899,"date":"2017-01-24T17:46:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T00:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=15899"},"modified":"2017-01-25T17:33:42","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T00:33:42","slug":"legislative-update-monday-jan-23-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/01\/legislative-update-monday-jan-23-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislative Update: Tuesday, Jan. 24"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"capitol-logo\"<\/a>Bill would allow guns at the post office<\/h4>\n

By Cole Grant<\/h6>\n

The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on four bills about gun control Tuesday morning at the 2017 Montana Legislature.<\/p>\n

House Bill 246<\/a> would allow firearms on postal service property in Montana, overriding a federal rule that prohibits it. This would include inside the post office, as well as the parking lot.<\/p>\n

Rep. Seth Berglee, R-Joliet, spoke in favor of the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd even people that concealed carry, to say that you can\u2019t just take it off and leave it in your vehicle, that that too would be illegal, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s really in keeping with the traditions of Montana,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mark Murphy, representign the Montana Association of Chiefs of Police, spoke against the bill.<\/p>\n

<\/b>\u201cOur officers take an oath to the United States Constitution and to enforce all the laws,” he said. “This will put us in a position of violating the oath that we take when we start.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other three bills had to do with revising concealed-carry laws.<\/p>\n

Cole Grant is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University \u00a0of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Grants aimed at suicide prevention<\/h4>\n
By Freddy Monares<\/h6>\n

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would award grants through the Office of Public Instruction to develop a district-wide system of support to prevent students from committing suicide.<\/p>\n

House Bill 265<\/a> would require schools that receive the grant adopt and implement a suicide-prevention plan outlined in the bill.<\/p>\n

Democratic Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell is the sponsor of the bill. She says there are currently several programs across the state in schools that are working to prevent suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s piecemeal,” she said. “What I want to do is make this part of a long-term system improvement as we move forward with public education.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill would give schools across the state the opportunity to take advantage of a prevention plan. Dunwell says she\u2019s talked to the Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuicide prevention is a priority of hers. She looked right in my eyes and said, \u2018we need to do something,\u2019\u201d Dunwell said.<\/p>\n

The bill says\u00a0the money to fund the program would come from a 1\u00a0percent increase in the sales tax for car rentals, raising the rate to 5 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cTourists would be paying for this for Montanans to enjoy the quality of life and address some of the mental health challenges many of us share,\u201d Dunwell said.<\/p>\n

The House Education committee will hear the bill Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Freddy Monares is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill would allow guns at the post office By Cole Grant The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on four bills about gun control Tuesday morning at the 2017 Montana Legislature. House Bill 246 would allow firearms on postal service property in Montana, overriding a federal rule that prohibits it. This would include inside the post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":15664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1122],"class_list":["post-15899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-montana-legislature","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}